


I don't want to let go.

by FuriousPoplar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:39:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousPoplar/pseuds/FuriousPoplar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They keep trying to cover their eyes and hide from the past, even when he's calling their name. </p>
<p>But some things cannot be avoided forever. It's time to say goodbye, with their own voice this time.</p>
<p>If they even can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't want to let go.

                It was incredible how different the Underground felt, after everything they had been through. Hotland felt just a little less sweltering, Waterfall felt just a little less ominous, Snowdin felt just a little less cold. The Ruins, god, how long ago had they seen the Ruins? It couldn’t have been more than a few days, yet, even after so little time, the Ruins already felt laughably quaint and overwhelmingly cramped. They wondered how it had ever made them feel lost or wary in the first place. But all throughout their walk, they felt something else. More than the heat, more than the cold, more than the whispers on their neck, and more than the memories of the past. Wherever they went, there was a beaming, bright aura of joy and relief that shone in streaks of gold from every face they passed.

So why, then, did they feel like they had lost something that they may never hope to replace?

_Asriel._

Even just thinking his name stung like picking an old scar, jabbing them with phantom pains that tickled through their nerves. Yet, as much as it hurt to see him go, as much as it drained from them knowing that he wouldn’t get to live the life he deserved, they knew that it shouldn’t have been like _this._ Losing someone they had only barely met shouldn’t crush them this way.

They knew who it was coming from. Chara had been nearly silent during the fight, maintaining an iron composure that Frisk couldn’t help but admire, as much as they could tell that it had hurt.

 “Do you need to talk? I’m not going to pretend that I know what you must be going through, but I’m here for you.”

_“I’m fine.”_ Had the words been spoken aloud, they would have sung like wind chimes as the room’s draft hissed through their hollow core.

“You’re a not a very good liar…”

_“No, I suppose not. Look, it’s too late now, anyway. I wanted to say goodbye, yes, but… it’s best that he forget about me, even if I know that he never will. He was always overly sentimental…_

_It seems as if we are almost at the flowerbed… I guess that we will have to go back and head to the surface soon, huh?”_ Their attempt to change the subject was stilted and ungraceful, but Frisk played along anyway- they wanted to help, but they really couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Actually… I’d like to sit down for a while once we get there, if that’s okay. I know you don’t like it when I waste time, but my feet are getting sore.”

_“Of course. It is not about me, Frisk; take as much time as you need. Truthfully, I do not feel as if the surface is worth rushing towards anyhow.”_

At long last, they had returned to the beginning of the ruins. The formless black of the walls still felt somewhat unsettling, but it was a lot easier to press onward knowing that Flowey wasn’t around. Frisk couldn’t help but wonder what they or Chara might have said, had they known who he was, way back when they first fell down.

They also wondered how literally to take the phrase; “Deafening Silence” when they saw him standing above the golden flowerbed, the hole in the ceiling shining down on him with a bright amber spotlight.

The sound of naught but the blood flowing through their ears almost hurt to listen to. The sudden stillness in their chest made it feel as if time had forgotten to keep moving.

“You said that you wanted to say goodbye.”

_“I also said that he should forget about me. Do you always pick and choose what you hear?”_ They were snippy now, a dry and bitter tone enveloping their disembodied voice. Frisk could see through it by now, however- whenever Chara was snippy, that really just meant they were trying to hide something else. They hid their feelings a lot, sometimes with an unemotional prose, sometimes with laughter. Sometimes, they would get desperate and try anything they could think of.

“Just talk to him, okay? He won’t be mad at you, I know he won’t.”

_“No. I don’t want to. I never wanted to even see him again. I…_

_I can’t do it. I just can’t.”_

“You’re not alone; I’ll be there with you. We can do it together. You always tell _me_ to stay determined when _I’m_ afraid, right? “

The silence roared louder.

_“…Okay. Fine. I’ll talk to him, if it will make you cut the sappy act.”_

They hesitated in accepting the control Frisk gave them, like a dog that didn’t trust the sudden slack on its leash. Still, Frisk found themselves a spectator as their feet began to gently inch forward.

…

Asriel heard them approach of course, but said nothing. It’s not that they weren’t welcome; he just so dearly wished that they would leave him to rot and move on.

But no, they wouldn’t. They were just too nice to let him go mad again in peace, and of course, they wanted to talk with him.

“Greetings…” He tried not to dwell on why their voice sounded so familiar.

“Don’t worry about me; somebody has to take care of these flowers.” _Maybe,_ he thought, _that’d satisfy them. It should, right? Simple, poignant, full of closure._

_I’m trying my best here, Frisk. Please work with me._

They said nothing, but their continued presence seemed to suggest that they would not be satiated so easily.

_Guess I have to be honest, then._ “Frisk, please leave me alone. I can’t go back, I just can’t. I can’t break their hearts again, It’s better if they never see me.”

Still, they did not budge. A growing part of him wanted to be mad, to scream and hiss and shout so they would finally leave him be. It wouldn’t be long now before he became that yellow-petaled _thing_ again, he could already feel himself growing ever bitter by the moment, but the least he could do was _try_ to stay himself, for as long as he could.

When he asked Frisk why they had climbed the mountain, he was hoping they’d cut him off with some innocuous, simple reason, but he was entirely expecting sadness. They were a hard person to read, especially when their head was bowed into its own shadow, but they didn’t look _sad_. Instead, something about the sagging creases on their face suggested a presence of sympathy.

_It’s still so funny,_ he thought, _they look so much like Chara. Even their expressions…_

He’d been trying to hold off on thinking about them. Even more than the gouge in himself where a soul once softly beat, thinking about them just made him feel so empty.

_Empty._

_That’s a feeling I’ll have to get used to again, huh?_

So he did think about them- he thought about them out loud, so that he didn’t have to do it alone.

“I know why Chara climbed the mountain. It wasn’t for a very happy reason. Frisk, I’ll be honest with you; Chara hated humanity.”

They nodded solemnly, as if in agreement.

“ _Why_ they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that…”

_Humans are awful, Asriel._

_Humans hurt people, Asriel._

_Humans are evil, Asriel._

_I’m even worse, Asriel._

_I’ll just end up hurting you, Asriel._

_Why are you being so nice to me, Asriel?_

_Humanity deserves to burn, Asriel._

_Why won’t you kill them, Asriel?_

_Why don’t you just let me do it instead, Asriel?_

_Why don’t you want to see them suffer, Asriel?_

_Don’t you understand?_

_In this world, it’s kill or be killed._

“Frisk… you really are different from Chara. I don’t know why I ever acted like you were the same person.”

They nodded again. It was sort of shaky this time, as if their neck had rusted over from disuse.

Their eyes were misty, too. He had to admit, he didn’t really understand why. Maybe they just felt that strongly for him. After all, they seemed to have enough love- real, honest love- in them to last a thousand years. Maybe good people just tend to cry easily.

Chara never cried. Chara just laughed, even if it wasn’t funny. He knew why, now.

“Maybe… the truth is… Chara wasn’t really the greatest person.

While you, Frisk… you’re the type of friend I wish I always had.”

_The type of friend who wouldn’t have turned their back on everyone who loved them._

A trembling whimper echoed in his ears.

…

They already knew they were awful. They had been told this, every day. They told themselves this, every day. So why, then, did they let that pitiful squeak past their lips? Why did their eyes leak like runny faucets?  Why did it feel like their chest was being peeled open, tendon by tendon? Why did it feel like they were being dragged into the dirt by the weight of the mistakes on their back?

Why did it all hurt so much?

…

Their knees quavered and buckled like there were invisible hands bearing down on their shoulders, trying to grind them into dust. Their chest shook irregularly, unable to keep a steady breath, leaving them gasping for air.

Then, it happened. He could almost hear them shatter.

Instantly, they were forced to their knees as the hands grew stronger, pushing their chin to their chest. Their hands rested upwards and open on their legs in surrender. And above all else, an ugly, undignified, _hideous_ bawl flooded from them, in short, strident bursts of hiccups and stutters. It pulled and stretched the corners of their mouth into a quivering grimace and reverberated through their body, heaving their shoulders up and down.

“Frisk? What… what’s wrong? Why are you-“

“I-I’m s-so s-sor-sorry, Azzy… I-I was so stupid, I-it’s all my f-f-fault, I never sh-should have… I n-never… sh… I…” The words drowned in the sobs, dying a quick death and leaving only shaky babbles as proof that they ever had been.

‘ _Azzy’? The only one who ever called me that was…_

_Oh._

“…Chara?” His hoarse squeak fell on deafened ears.

It had to be them. After so long, after so many years, they had somehow come back, speaking through someone else’s voice. He looked closely at them, as they continued to heave and gasp.

He looked at Chara, stoic Chara, who never dared shed a single tear.

He looked at Chara, brave Chara, who never even flinched at anything the world had to throw at them.

He looked at Chara, strong Chara, who smiled wide every day they laid bleeding in their bed, beaming ear-to-ear through the agony that surged and tore through every fiber of their body.

He looked at them now, and he saw that they were _broken._

_…Vulnerable._

He could kill them, right now. It would be so easy. He could just… pluck their head from their shoulders, or slowly twist their neck around and around until it cracked apart like fallen leaves. Or maybe…

_‘I don’t forgive you.’_

Those words taunted him, from the back of his head. There was so much power in them, right now. He didn’t even have to _touch_ them, that’s how fragile, how _pathetic_ they were right now. If he said those words aloud… well, if they didn’t stop breathing on the spot, they’d spend the rest of their miserable existence desperately wishing that they could feel anything at all.

_And wouldn’t that just be so pricelessly ironic?_

_Hey, you said it yourself, buddy._

_In this world, it’s kill or be killed._

He opened his mouth, spite and malice bubbling on his tongue.

He closed it again.

_Well, what’cha waiting for, you idiot? Do it._

He looked at them one more time.

He saw Chara, who had torn his family apart.

Chara, who had ignored his pleas that they stop.

Chara, who threw away everything they had for the sake of revenge.

Chara, who had stolen his happy life away from him.

 

…Chara, the only one he ever really opened up around.

Chara, the only one who truly understood him.

Chara, his best friend.

Chara, the one thing in the world he had loved above all else.

Chara… the reason he had come all the way back here, to this flowerbed. To this grave.

All because he wanted to see them again.

 

Asriel couldn’t ever hurt them. Maybe Flowey could, but he wasn’t entirely Flowey yet. As bitter as he was about all that had happened, he mostly found himself wishing that they’d just stop crying.

…

Frisk was absolutely speechless, instead trying to give them some sort of ghost-hug, and that was actually pretty funny, in their mind. It was also pretty funny when they managed to peel their puffy eyes open and steal a peak at Asriel- he was standing wide-eyed like a deer caught in headlights. But the way they knelt, weeping in shame, before the person whose life they had completely destroyed, begging for forgiveness like a scared little kid? Now that was just _hilarious._

But they weren’t laughing, because it _wasn’t_ funny. None of it was funny. None of it had _ever_ been funny.

It wasn’t funny when they were trying not to collapse into hysteria while he had cried their name in grief. It wasn’t funny when they woke up from their little nap in the soil as a powerless ghost that nobody could see. It wasn’t funny when they felt the one person they had loved above everyone else get torn to shreds by the people they despised. It wasn’t funny when he hunched over their bleeding, ulcer ridden husk and begged them to stop. It just wasn’t funny.

They couldn’t start laughing, not this time. They couldn’t pretend any more. The gates were open now; every little doubt, every little thought, every mistake, miniscule and massive, it was all pinning them down beneath the ever-growing flood, choking the air from their lungs. Had their arms not been dead against their sides, they’d have been trying to claw their way through their eyes and into their head to make it all stop.

 

They felt a pair of familiar arms wrap around them, careful and delicate, as if afraid that they might scatter away in the wind. They found themselves hoping that he was about to wring their neck, just so that this whole thing, so that _they_ could finally be over. Instead, he pulled them close in a warm, soothing embrace that they couldn’t help but return.

“I’m here. I’m here. Please don’t cry. It’s okay, just please don’t cry.” His words worked like magic, releasing the tension from their back and calmly pushing down on their shoulders until they were too heavy to lift themselves. They still couldn’t stop crying, but now it came out in warm, silent droplets soaking his shoulder. The two sat silent for a long time; neither wanted to risk letting go, lest the other vanish into thin air before their very eyes.

They were only barely able to summon the strength to speak, a strong, sniffling catch tainting their whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I should never have thrown away everything the way I did. I should never have ruined everything, the way I did. I should never have done this to you. I-“

Asriel interrupted. “I forgive you, okay? That’s all in the past, now.”

“No, it isn’t. You’re still going to end up as a Flower again, it isn’t okay. I don’t… I don’t understand how you can even say that.”  Their head hung down behind their hair again, too ashamed to dare lift itself up and meet his eyes.

“Chara, _look at me._ It’s because I _love_ you. You’re my best friend. I can’t stay mad at the mistakes you made forever, not after so much time, and not after… so many mistakes of my own. I’m just glad to see you again, even if… it’s only for a little while…” He muffled his voice as he trailed off, wanting to keep the lump in his throat a secret.

Their eyes flared wide with panic. “I’m… I’m not leaving you down here to rot! I can’t do that to you, I can’t leave you to suffer alone again!”

“Chara… I really can’t go with you. I’m sorry, but I really can’t. It’s better if they don’t see me at all; it’s not right to do that to everyone, to Mom and Dad.”

“That’s _bullshit_ and you know it! I saw them again, Azzy, they miss you so much. They don’t care if you’re a flower or yourself or whatever, the only thing they want is to be with you again.”

 “You… you have to l-let go, Chara.” Asriel had never been good at holding back tears, and it showed in the burning, damp streaks running down his face.

Their voice began to quake with desperation. “P-Please come with us, I know that it will be hard, b-but we can get help. There has to be a way to fix this, I know there is, we just have to try. I just… I just want you back. I-I’m scared, Azzy. I don’t want to live like this, I can’t take it anymore. I’m losing my mind in here. I… I can’t do it w-without you, I’m not s-strong enough! I don’t w-want to see the surface i-if you aren’t there too, I don’t want to keep going if you’re gone. Please j-just come with us, I c-can’t lose y-you again!”

 

He wanted to go. He wanted his life back, he wanted his friend back, and he wanted to be with his Mom and Dad again. He wanted to see the sun with his own eyes, to see the stars. But to go meant facing them all again. To go meant telling them what he had done, because he knew there was no way he would be able to sit on knowledge like that. The mere thought of it made his stomach tie itself in a painful, anxious knot.

He couldn’t do it.

At least, not alone.

“If you really think that… that there’s a way to get us both back to normal… then…

I’ll go with you. We can do this together, right?”

Their arms coiled around him and squeezed as hard as they could, making him feel as if his head was about to pop off his shoulders like a bottle rocket.

“Together.”

…

 

Nobody was exactly trusting of Frisk’s new potted friend after what had happened, but they had faith in the human’s judgment, and so they did not question them further. Everyone deserved mercy, everyone deserved a second chance. That’s what they had taught them all, was it not?

They had to be honest with their ‘passengers’-one in their arms, one in their head-, they really had no idea where to even start on this plan of theirs. They had cautiously suggested asking Alphys, but none of the three of them were sure she would ever agree to even touching determination or a soul again.

Still, there had to be a way. The mere fact that they were all standing here before the setting sun was nothing short of a miracle. It is said that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but how could it, with that attitude?

Even if it was a stretch, even if the path there seemed daunting, the thought that their two friends may one day see a sunset as beautiful as this one with their own eyes...

More than just determination, it filled them with hope.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have to admit, this concept rivals "Genocide Route Nightmares" for most overdone, but I wanted to try my take on it anyway.


End file.
